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Sorry, this ended up longer and a bit more E/N than I intended. I don't know if I was ever technically morbidly obese, but at my heaviest recorded weight (147.5 kg, ~325lb) I had a BMI of 39.6 and IMO that's close enough. My height is 193cm, or about 6'4", to help put that in perspective. How did I get there? My biggest problems were depression and nobody confronting me or making me confront my weight and dietary issues. I also have a legitimate disability that I used as an excuse much more than I should have. I have Dyspraxia; which makes physical activity difficult since I have issues learning and executing proper form, tire more quickly, and am likely to injure myself. I also never paid much attention to calories in vs calories burned, or to the nutritional value of food until I was already obese. And I didn't really care until a couple years later. I was always somewhat overweight as a kid, but not obese. My diet wasn't great, but I did a lot of swimming. Despite my Dyspraxia I was actually quite good at swimming. Well, by "quite good" I mean "wasn't the worst in the competitive league I joined". Then one day at practice I injured my neck; but it didn't seem to be much more than a sprain at the time, so the coach/instructor/whatever suggested taking me to this chiropractor he knew. My parents, not knowing that Chiropractic is bullshit, took his advice and by the next day my neck hurt so bad I couldn't get out of bed. After 6 months of physio my neck had healed enough for me to start getting back into swimming, but I was at the age where competitiveness was actually starting to mean something, and I didn't want to get back into it knowing I'd have no hope of being great. I know that's horrible reasoning, but I was 13. I also had a tougher time dealing with my Sensory Processing Disorder(part of my Dyspraxia) during puberty, which led to me being sedentary in quiet, secluded spaces. I still ate as much, if not more, than before. That's when I really started putting on weight. By the end of high school I was almost certainly obese, although I don't know how much I weighed. I didn't start getting into morbidly obese territory until I started college in 2011. During my second year I started having chronic insomnia, and I attempted to self-medicate with benzos. All that accomplished was getting me addicted to benzos, which led to me dropping out of college, becoming depressed, and working 2 part time night-shift jobs. I kicked the benzo habit a few months later, but the depression must have stayed. I never felt like cooking and most of my diet consisted of fast food I'd pick up on the way to/from my job as a bouncer, or junk food from the gas station I worked the graveyard shift at. I didn't realize I had depression since I didn't feel depressed per se, I just kinda stopped feeling much of anything. I knew I was gaining weight, but I just didn't care anymore. To make things worse for my already depressed self, a series of terrible events happened for the rest of 2012: - One of the other bouncers at the strip club was stabbed. - A couple months later the same guy got shot. Seriously. He survived, and even went back to working there, but I quit after hearing he had been shot. - Developed gout. I had a mild case of it the year before, but this time the pain was debilitating and I couldn't walk. - A few months after that the gas station was robbed by a crack-head with a fire-axe while my co-worker was working the graveyard shift alone. The police caught who they thought was the guy, but didn't have enough evidence to prove it was him. - A few weeks later the guy robs the store again, this time with a sledgehammer, and this time with me working alone on the graveyard shift. This time they caught him trying to cash-in the scratch tickets he took along with the money. It wasn't until I saw myself on the security camera footage that it hit me just how fat I was. I knew I had been gaining weight, but I never felt so disgusted and ashamed of my weight until seeing myself like that. Now (little over a year since I started working out) I'm 102kg (~225lbs) with a BMI of 27.4. I feel much better, and working out has improved my coordination more than I had thought possible. I had resigned myself to be a clumsy, mostly stationary oaf, but now I'm spending plenty of time outdoors and even fixed up my bicycle and took it for a ride yesterday. That thing had been sitting in a shed for years now. What problems did I have because of obesity? I was sick a lot. While I was obese I would miss entire weeks of school, and occasionally work, from a cold or flu that would turn into an infection. I used to think I just had a naturally weak immune system, but since I started working out and eating right I haven't been sick once. I developed gout, high blood pressure, and at my heaviest I was pre-diabetic. All 3 of these went way when I lost weight. I was uncomfortably warm almost all the time, anything above 19c was uncomfortable. I was told by my doctor that heat sensitivity can be part of Dyspraxia, but I've been perfectly fine in warm temperatures since losing weight. Having a coordination disorder in addition to being obese made moving around extra difficult. My apartment became a horrid mess since I never had the energy to clean behind or under things. Tripping all the time went from a mild annoyance to an actual hazard since I had so much more mass, and I was always hurting my ankles and hips tripping over small objects/my own feet/nothing at all. I had to either order some of my clothes online, or drive 2 hours to another city since my city didn't have a "Big & Tall" shop at the time. Most Embarrassing Fat Moments Once, during Math, the back legs of the desk/chair combo thing I was sitting in gave out and the chair portion slowly fell to the floor. The teacher stared at me in disbelief the whole time I was sliding down, and everyone laughed hysterically; me included. Afterwords I was to embarrassed to change desks and just sat at an angle like that for the rest of class. Luckily it was during the last week of my grade 12 year. I couldn't image going through all of grade 12 with that hanging over my head. When I was working at the gas station I had long hair and a goatee. Someone commented that I looked like Chum-Lee from Pawn Stars. --- What made you turn it around? 2012 was a terrible year for me, and early in 2013 a friend gave me a bunch of weed to try and cheer me up. After a week of smoking weed every day I started to come out of my depression, and all at once I came to a realization of how hosed up that year had been. Most importantly I realized how hosed up it was how little I had cared about my life being so hosed up. I bought a vaporizer so that I could more discretely consume weed*, made a plan to get healthy, and moved in to my Grandparents basement so that I could save up and finish college. How did you start to lose weight? What exercises could you do, or was it all diet initially? I read through the General Diet & Exercise thread in YYLS. It was mainly diet initially, but after a couple months I started this workout I could do at home with some dumbbells and a weight bench. I started very slowly and got a friend to help with my form so I didn't hurt myself. I used Wii Fit U for some cardio while it was too cold to go oustide. What do you think someone could have said to you to make you want to start earlier? What do you think you could say to someone in a similar situation? If someone had flat-out asked me to start earlier I probably would have. None of my family or friends confronted me about my weight or even discussed it around me, for fear of making me feel worse I suppose. They spoke often about being happy with who I am, but never about changing or fixing who I am. If they had actually explained what I was doing to myself, which I must have already known on some level, I think I would have been able to confront it sooner. Did you encounter chubby chasers? Did anyone tell you they found your obesity attractive? On your way up the scale did you think you were attractive for a while or never? No. I tried not to think about how attractive I might be. --- *Before someone gets on my case about self-medicating depression with weed I'd like to point out I've started getting actual help for that. A couple weeks ago my depression came back hard when I tried to quit weed while job searching. I went to a doctor this time and he gave me an SNRI, Pristiq, and the fact that I wrote and posted this means it must be starting to work. I've also scheduled an appointment with a therapist. Squatch Ambassador fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Jul 12, 2014 |
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Jul 12, 2014 08:37
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Fatkraken posted:Did you say to yourselves "well, I'm not that fat, I can still [walk/run/shower/leave my bed/sit up unassisted]" since there are always news stories about some 650 lb person who is confined to their bed? Yes, all the time. It seems to me that when you're in denial about your weight issues your brain will automatically make this kind of justification to fend off cognitive dissonance. For instance I've never been more obese than my sister or some of my other relatives, and I would compare myself to them at Christmas gatherings or whatever to feel better about myself; as though being comparable to them wasn't terrible in and of itself. Fatkraken posted:If you didn't know about people way bigger than you, would it have made you feel better, worse or would it have made no difference? I don't know it it would have necessarily motivated me to get healthy sooner, but the lack of easy justifications would most likely have made me feel worse.
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Jul 16, 2014 00:52
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